Brooklyn Nets Win First Battle for the Heart of New York Fans in Knicks Showdown

When Hurricane Sandy swept through town in late October, it left a path of destruction in its wake and New York City in chaos. With transportation completely shut down the following day, the city was forced to cancel the first N.B.A. game ever in Brooklyn. It was also to be the most talked-about season opener in the five boroughs in recent memory: a showdown between the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks. The storm forced the Nets to host its housewarming party at the Barclays Center two days later when they played against the Toronto Raptors, a team whose biggest attraction was a seven-foot Lithuanian tree trunk. That surely wasn’t what the Nets had in mind when they moved their basketball team from New Jersey to Brooklyn this summer and set up camp on the edge of Prospect Heights.

The Nets had spent the off-season trying to bring in talent that would lift the team out of the N.B.A. cellar they’d inhabited for the past several years and promoting a crosstown rivalry that had never existed before. When the Knicks game was rescheduled to November 26, it turned the Nets’ first 12 games into a sort of pre-season that happened to count in the official standings. It gave the team time to create an identity and to stake out its own turf in a metropolitan area long dominated by the Knicks. Last night’s game would determine if they had succeeded.

Before a sellout crowd of nearly 18,000, the Nets rallied from three points down with a minute and a half left in the game to force overtime—and then ran away from the Knicks in the extra period for a 96–89 victory that pulled the teams into a tie for first place in the Atlantic Division.

If the N.B.A. was a “24-hour-cycle league,” as Nets coach Avery Johnson said after the game, then for one day the Nets could say they had accomplished everything they’d set out to do.

Before the game, Johnson reflected on the Nets’ experience playing against the Knicks. “In New Jersey, we knew we were at a deficit in terms of fan support,” he said. “In my first two years, it was basically an 80–20 split—80 for their side. I’m hoping the 80 will be for our side tonight. That’ll help.”

Meanwhile in the Knicks’ locker room, their three-point specialist Steve Novak noted that the Barclays Center’s color scheme lent an ominous note to the game. “It’s all black and white,” he said. “That seems to be a theme around the arena. They don’t believe in color.”

Or light, as other critics have noted. Inside the arena, all the seats are black, and the backdrops to many of the lighted signs were also dark. Once the game began, the crowd was blacked-out, too, a lighting technique meant to illuminate the court like a theater production. In fact, the only colors you could find in the arena were the blue-and-orange jerseys on the thousands of Knicks fans in attendance. It didn’t seem that Johnson received his 80–20 split, but the color divide in the audience did seem to be about 50–50.

In the hallways of the ground floor, fan Sha Smif entered with his friend Jason Whitaker. The two had grown up together in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn. Smif was decked out in black and white and Whitaker in blue and orange. Smif, though, said he would be rooting for the Knicks and then pointed to his hat, a Knicks logo disguised in Nets colors. “I’m both a New York and Brooklyn fan,” he said. Whitaker shook his head. He wore a shirt with the logos of both teams, but his said, “Love the Knicks, Hate the Nets.” “I’ll root for the Nets after the Knicks win a championship,” he added.

Once the game began, the struggle for control of the arena took shape. The Nets won the tip-off, and on their first possession, Knicks fans rained chants of “de-fense” upon them. After the Knicks gained control of the ball, Nets fans returned the favor. When a player of either team went to the foul line, he was greeted by a chorus of boos. When he made the shot, he was cheered. After Knicks star Carmelo Anthony walked to the free-throw line, chants of “M.V.P.” mixed with boos. The only thing the crowd seemed to agree on was Knicks forward Rasheed Wallace. Whenever he touched the ball, a windy breath of “Sheed” spread across the room.

On the floor and under the lights, the players seemed spurred on by the adrenaline-fueled crowd. It wasn’t pretty basketball, but it was fast enough to keep everyone entertained. The first half was nip and tuck the whole way, with the lead flip-flopping back and forth and neither team ever ahead by more than six points. The fans’ dual nature may have influenced the players to keep it close. Neither team seemed interested in blowing out the other. At halftime, the Knicks led 47–45.

In the food line at Brooklyn Burgers, Tim Luntzel, 40, of Prospect Heights, who wore an orange Knicks T-shirt, said he had been a fan of the team since 1999 when Larry Johnson made a four-point play in a playoff game to help lead the Knicks past the Indiana Pacers. (The Knicks would go to the championship that year and lose to the San Antonio Spurs. Nets coach Avery Johnson was the Spurs’ starting point guard then.) When asked what he thought about the Brooklyn Nets, Luntzel said with just a touch of hostility, “I don’t think about them at all.”

After having watched the players coast to a first-half standoff and then listened to the fans trash-talk, you got the sense that the players just played the game, but the fans lived it.

Fittingly, the stars of both teams rose to the occasion late in the game, which largely came down to a duel between the Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony and the Nets’ Deron Williams. With the game tied at 84, both players would fall short on his chance to seal the deal, and the game went into an anticlimactic overtime. The Knicks ran out of gas and the Nets scored eight points over a two-minute stretch. With 30 seconds left, the Nets fans gave their team a standing ovation. When the final horn blew, chants of “Brook-lyn” took over the arena.

“This is what we’ve been dreaming about since we got here,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said afterward of the game’s atmosphere.